Talk to a Robot

Talk to a robot named Malicia. She’s a virtual person.
That means she doesn’t *really* exist.
Probably.

She’s here to promote my book Friend Me, from Simon & Schuster’s Howard Books. Friend Me will be available in stores by March, 2014.

Talk to Malicia by typing into the white space below her face. She’ll answer, both in text and voice. So turn up your speakers, and talk to a real, virtual person.

Friend Me is a story about artificial intelligence that goes really, really wrong.

Virtual people — and virtual relationships — are going to be the wave of the future. Imagine a world where people design their own Facebook friends. Where men design secret girlfriends and wives custom-craft their Harlequin fantasies. They’re coming, and they are coming sooner than you think.

Experiment with Malicia, above. She’s just a simple, conversational robot. She was easy to design and implement. Easy in the sense of, it took me about a week to get her the way I liked her, and with the appearance I wanted her to have.

Ask her some fun questions like, “What religion are you?” I’ve built some interesting responses into her.

What would you do with a robot like this? Do you think I should make a guide for each of my main characters? I’m considering lots of things like that. The possibilities are endless.